The House of Fiction
by wherefore-suchas
Summary: Set immediately after Blue Bird. Jane and Lisbon are called onto a case with some haunting repercussions for Jane where his vision may be clouded by his past, much to Lisbon's dismay. Meanwhile, their romance develops, but not without some growing pains. T now, but may be M later.
1. Chapter 1

**Not mine. Never were. Money made from this: zero dollars.**

**So it's been about a billion years since I wrote a fanfic for ANYTHING. Therefore, I thought I'd jump back in with both feet and try a multichapter for characters I've never written before! I'm a super brain genius for sure, but _Blue Bird_ (an an 8 month hiatus) was just that much motivation.**

**The mystery for this story is based on the real-life story about Jeffrey MacDonald and his family (if you like true crime, I can highly recommend _Fatal Vision_ by Joe McGinniss). I think he's a good contrast for Jane's story. The two men remind me of that quote from Pride and Prejudice: "One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it."**

* * *

_The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million-a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will. These apertures, of dissimilar_

_shape and size, hang so, all together, over the human scene that we might have expected of them a greater sameness of report than we find. They are but windows at the best, mere holes in a dead wall, disconnected, perched aloft; they are not hinged doors opening straight upon life. But they have this mark of their own that at each of them stands a figure with a pair of eyes, or at least with a field-glass, which forms, again and again, for observation, a unique instrument, insuring to the person making_

_use of it an impression distinct from every other. He and his neighbours are watching the same show, but one seeing more where the other sees less, one seeing black where the other sees white, one seeing big where the other sees small, one seeing coarse where the other sees fine. And so on, and so on; there is fortunately no saying on what, for the particular pair of eyes, the window may NOT open…_

- Henry James, preface to _The Portrait of a Lady_

* * *

The one thing Adam Donaldson knew for certain, bone deep, was that this was the worst day of his life.

He watched the MPs move in front of him, around him, as if from a great distance. He felt very small and they seemed very far away. There was a vague pain in his right side. His hands hurt and his head ached, but it was all so far away.

"Captain Donaldson? Captain? Can you hear me?"

A light in his eyes. Some small part of him realized that they were testing his pupil response. SOP for suspected concussion. The light clicked off and he blinked rapidly to try to clear away the red ghosts of afterimage that floated in front of him. In time, the MP's face swam into view.

"Madison?" he croaked. "My wife. Where is she?" Some part of him, some interior, ultra-rational part, knew the answer to the question; knew that if he just reached out his right arm the slightest bit (though it felt as if it weighed a million pounds), he would know. Her body would be there, cooling slowly in the mild Texan spring air.

The MP bit his lip. Even to Donaldson's muddled vision he looked about sixteen years old.

"My girls: Jenny? Bernadette?"

Any harder and the kid would draw blood.

Jesus.

Adam Donaldson shut his eyes and felt the room whirling in the dark beyond his closed lids.

"I'm sorry, Captain Donaldson. I'm so sorry. The ambulance is on its way."

He felt the kid touch the back of his hand, tentatively, as if Donaldson were a wild animal that the kid was afraid of startling.

* * *

There were things about sleeping with Jane that Lisbon had never considered. If she were being honest with herself (which, in the velvet, pre-dawn darkness, she was inclined to be), she hadn't ever envisioned getting to this place with him. His nose was pressed against the crook of her neck and left shoulder, his left leg flung over her lower thighs, the entirety of the Blue Bird Lodge's plentiful stock of bed linens wrapped securely around his right leg, waist, and torso.

Patrick Jane was a certified blanket thief.

She supposed it shouldn't be surprising. There was a knack and a courtesy to sharing a bed with another person that he hadn't contended with in over 12 years. It wasn't as if she were an Olympic caliber bed-sharing champion herself.

On the other hand, he wasn't the only one who was tired. She rolled her eyes a bit and cleared her throat. "Jane," she whispered.

Nothing.

"Jane!"

"Whazzat?" he grumbled. The barest hint of a five o'clock shadow brushed across her skin and she shivered, at first holding it back out of force of habit but then remembering where she was and what had happened. She could feel him move his lips against her neck. A smile maybe? Seeing him smile more often, in a real, genuine way, was on her heart's secret "to do" list. He rolled back a bit so he could kiss her shoulder before scraping his teeth across it gently.

"You're hogging the blankets. Is this how it's going to be with you?" She tried to keep her voice stern, but the last part of the question came out with a laugh.

He moved off her completely and took his sweet time untangling himself. She peeked lazily over her shoulder and watched him with interest. He was naked from the waist up, wearing only a pair of charcoal colored boxer briefs. The marks of years and time and tragedy were on him, on both of them, but, if pressed, she would honestly admit that he was beautiful. So beautiful that it scared her. Well, all of this did because it was too frighteningly new and raw.

When she refocused after her brief reverie she found him regarding her with a ghost of a smile on his lips.

"I'd say 'Stop thinking so hard, Teresa,' but that would be a losing battle." She'd always secretly loved the way he said her name. Coming from anyone else in the world it would have sounded pompous and affected, but from him...he had always been a special case. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him so, but she held herself back. The force of 12 years of habit wasn't about to be overcome in an instant. Jane cupped his hand against her cheek and she leaned into his fingers, closing her eyes for a moment. "I'm a bit out of practice," he admitted.

She reopened her eyes and smiled. "I'd noticed. Usually when I take a man to bed I expect a little more than sleeping." He moved his hand from her face to his chest, splaying his fingers in mock indignation and she laughed aloud. "You can cut the dramatics," she added gently. "It's been a long couple of days for both of us."

He visibly swallowed, looking momentarily stricken. Self-doubt wasn't an expression she was accustomed to seeing on his face and she found it touching and unnerving in almost equal measures. "I want to do this right."

It was on the tip of her tongue to respond with an appropriate variant on, "You just put your lips together and blow," but something held her back. In many ways, her relationship with the old Jane had been free and easy compared to this. They had fun together, they bantered and flirted, but it never really _meant_ anything, at least not anything permanent. The spectre of his family, of Red John, of her duty to the law, of their differing philosophies on revenge and justice and fairness, had always stood at least partly between them. She was unaccustomed to this new Jane, who was so much like the old (so heartbreakingly like), but who had an earnestness and raw edges that she wanted to be careful not to jostle.

All of this passed between them in an instant. He'd freed the sheets and blankets and held his arm up high and wide, welcoming her into the warmth of his body. They would have time now to figure these things out together. It would take some getting used to to be sure, but it would come.

Lisbon rolled on her side, tucking her right arm over Jane's waist. He smelled like heat and his aftershave - bay rum if she wasn't mistaken (perfect for him: old fashioned but not stuffy). When she pressed into him, she felt his erection brush against the top of her thighs, but she supposed they were ignoring that for the time being. They were both too tired and emotionally wrung-out to deal with that particular hurdle, especially since, not 24 hours earlier, they had firmly believed that they'd never see each other again. But still his soft intake of breath at the contact and the tightening in her own belly meant that it wasn't an issue that would stay unresolved for long.

They both slid into sleep easily, so gently that neither would honestly remember the moment between consciousness and unconsciousness, which, in its way, made jarring awake to the sound of the room's telephone just a touch more unpleasant.

"Jane. Phone."

"What makes you think it's for me?"

She shot him as sharp a look as she could muster. "It's your room."

"Fair point." He reached over and picked up the receiver with two fingers. "Hello?"

There was a silence and for a wild instant Lisbon thought it might be Pike, coming for her, calling Jane out. She tried to shoo the thought away. Pike's nature wasn't confrontational, although she _would_ have to call him. As much as she'd waved off Jane's concerns, she knew it wouldn't be a pleasant conversation.

"Yes, fine. We'll be there." Jane hung up the phone and Lisbon looked up at him quizzically. "That was Abbott." He paused a moment, considering her slightly panicked face as she processed the 'we' aspect of his conversation with her boss. "Relax, Teresa. Whose car do you think I drove to the airport?"

"I hadn't thought about it, to be honest."

"Well, there's nothing gained in worrying about Abbott," Jane assured her. He was partially propped up against the headboard of the bed, her head on his chest. Impulsively, she stretched up and licked his left nipple. Jane regarded her with a mixture of arousal, amusement, and dismay that she found particularly satisfying. "He wants us back in Austin for a case."

"Oh really? Don't feel like flouting the rules anymore today?"

He smiled. One of those you've-just-come-to-see-me-in-the-holding-cell smiles. "Even I have my limits."

She hummed in the back of her throat, which he seemed to find _fascinating_. "Hard to believe," she said innocently, tracing a fingertip around his kneecap and onto his lower thigh. Jane bit his lip. "When's our flight?"

"Key West International at 7am."

"Is that so?" She raised her eyebrows and placed her hand _just so_ against Jane's hipbone so that she could leaver herself up for a look at the clock radio. "Well then we'd better get a move on."

He groaned in frustration. "Woman, are you planning on being the death of me?"

Her eyes were positively sparking when she said, "We'll see."

* * *

**Thoughts?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you guys so much for the reviews and follows! I was super motivated to try for another chapter. It's weird but nice to be back in the fanfic game if only for a little while!**

* * *

Jane was too keyed up to properly settle himself onto one of the Airstream's small couches. He perched on the edge of the cushion, plucking idly at the piping that ran along its front. The water had boiled, the teapot had been scalded, the WuYi yancha was steeping. Lisbon was still in the shower.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment to imagine her soapy and wet, her dark hair clinging against her neck. More than a moment perhaps. "Teresa?"

No answer. A tendril of anxiety bloomed in his stomach. Was she avoiding him? Not that there was much of anywhere to go in the Airstream, but then he reckoned the past months had clearly demonstrated that they were both masters of evasion when it suited them, even when they were sitting in the same room (or the same restaurant booth for that matter).

Jane took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, willing his nervousness away. "Briefing's at two."

Their hasty departure from Florida hadn't left any time for anything more than a quick clean up in the sink at the Blue Bird. Even after his own shower, he still felt vaguely musty. For want of another option, Lisbon had agreed to shower in his trailer ("Some people don't have the luxury of an apartment anymore," she'd pointed out archly, easing any possible sting her words might have had with a soft kiss placed at the corner of his mouth.) Not that he wasn't immensely pleased to keep her as close as possible. Part of him still half-expected her to run screaming into the Texas wilderness or to simply evaporate like one of his belladonna-induced hallucinations. No, he wanted her nearby, but he knew her and he knew that all that had happened in the past days was a lot for anyone to process, least of all someone as wary of commitment as Teresa Lisbon.

The shower was still running. He stood and poured the tea into two cups, placing them on the dinette and fussing their handles around just so. On the kitchen countertop, Lisbon's phone buzzed for a time and then stopped, chiming a moment later to indicate the presence of a new message. He studiously avoided peeking at the display, which honestly required a force of will he was unaccustomed to exerting. Pike most likely. They hadn't talked about Pike yet, not really. They hadn't talked about a lot of things.

"Briefing's at…" he raised his voice, thinking she hadn't heard him over the rushing water, which chose that moment to cut off completely, leaving him to shout, "two!"

The door cracked and Lisbon poked her head into the room. "I heard you the first time," she said, smiling wryly. "This concern about things like 'time' and 'rules' is a side of you I've never seen, Jane."

"I'm sure it won't last long if that's what you're worried about," he replied lightly with a small flick of his wrist.

A faint worry line appeared between her eyebrows. "Don't go changing too much."

He regarded her seriously. "I want to show you that I'm a good bet, Teresa." After a beat, Jane cleared his throat. "I'm afraid I don't have coffee." He pulled a face at the mere thought, which caused her to wrinkle her nose in response. "Yancha is probably closest in taste, so that's what I made. Hurry up before it gets cold."

"Ah, yes, cold yancha. Wouldn't want that. Hand me my bag will you?" Lisbon nodded to where her carry-on was sitting on the couch nearest the bathroom and extended her arm expectantly.

"If I were less of a gentleman I'd make you come out here and get it yourself."

"What makes you think I wouldn't do that without you needing to resort to trickery?"

He cocked his head at her. "I'm liking this new side of you too, Lisbon. Maybe another time when we don't have..."

"A briefing at two?"

"Precisely." He dutifully retrieved her bag and handed it to her. She was watching him closely and he could see her working over things in her head. Anyone who'd known Jane for more than a week wouldn't have bought his (temporarily) reformed schtick for a second, and Lisbon had known him considerably longer than that. The truth wasn't all one thing or the other. Jane _did _feel a debt of gratitude to Abbott. Not only for lending his car so readily, but for questioning him about Lisbon and then standing back while Jane tried to work his feelings out for himself. True, the gesture wasn't completely altruistic on Abbott's part - it was in his best interests to maintain a well-functioning team after all - but it lacked any overwhelming clockwork sense of calculation. Abbott had done these things for Jane because he was a good man and a good boss who also wanted to run a good team.

Underneath that sense of obligation was a feeling as if a wild bird were caught up in Jane's chest. While it was certainly true that he'd meant every word of what he'd said to Lisbon, it was also true that he'd been on his own, by chance and then design, for a very long time. Having someone else in his life who mattered, who he _recognized _as mattering, who he didn't want to take for granted, would take some...realignment. In his own way, he was as skittish as Lisbon when it came to commitment.

"Hey," she said, placing the bag on the floor so she could reach out and squeeze his hand. She drew him gently towards her, just a bit. Her skin was warm and still somewhat damp from the shower. She smelled like his mint shampoo and that simple fact - his scent on her body - went straight to his groin with a speed he hadn't felt in ages.

"Hey," he replied. "I feel like I'm about fifteen years old again."

Lisbon bit her lip and his mouth went dry. "I'll get dressed."

"Not on my account, I hope."

"Rethinking that briefing?"

He shrugged. "Maybe." He really did have more than half a mind to pull her out of that bathroom and onto the nearest of the sofabeds.

She wavered, leaned out a little further into the room. He bent down and kissed her soundly, parting his lips when he felt the touch of her tongue. What seemed like only an instant later she was gone, shutting the door firmly behind her. "You're right, we should get to that briefing."

Disappointment he could almost taste crashed over him, followed quickly by a spark of amusement. If this was how she wanted to play things for right now, he would bide his time. Patience wasn't necessarily part of his vocabulary, but then winding her up had its attractions as well.

* * *

A nightmare, that's what it was. An absolute nightmare.

Donaldson ran his hand through his hair. How many hours had they kept him here? He felt as if there were a fine layer of grit over his eyeballs, as if every time he blinked there was a rasping sound.

He stood and circled the table in the interrogation room for what seemed like the hundredth time. "Anyone out there? Hello?"

Finally, _finally_, he heard the door latch click open. A serious looking man with an impeccably kept high and tight entered the room. He carried a stack of papers, a notebook, and a small digital recorder. "Sit down, please, Captain Donaldson."

Killing his first impulse to anger, Donaldson sat. It was no use flying off at the handle. He'd have to wait. The man sat across from him, setting out his papers and the recorder in a way Donaldson found oddly fussy.

"Can you tell me what's going on?"

"My name is Special Agent Jenkins. I'd like to talk about what happened last night, Captain."

Donaldson laid his hands flat on the tabletop. "I already told the MPs that…"

"I'd like to hear it from you." Jenkins opened a folder and removed a stack of photographs, which Donaldson recognized as pictures of the inside of his house. Torn to pieces.

Donaldson partially bit back a sob that still felt as if it ripped his throat raw. "Oh god. Jesus."

Jenkins laid out the pictures, seemingly ignoring Donaldson's outburst. "For example, what do you know about this?" The bedroom wall. His bedroom and Madison's. It took his eyes a moment to properly focus. Writing. There was writing on the bedroom wall. How cliche. How very. He couldn't even make out the words, couldn't make sense of them. "The invisible worm," Jenkins prompted. "Written in blood. William Blake, isn't it? What can you tell me about this?"

* * *

The Blake is from his poem "The Sick Rose" from _Songs of Experience_


	3. Chapter 3

**Oh my goodness you guys I hope you're still reading. Super apologies for the radio silence. Work got busy as all get-out, plus boring IRL stuff, you know? Rest assured that I'm still working on this story! **

**Thank you so much for your reviews and follows! They mean the world to me!**

* * *

Donaldson took a moment before responding. He'd grown up on Long Island in an unremarkable middle class development where, to him and the other kids in the neighborhood, the unequivocal sign that a family had "made it" was an in-ground pool. His family's closest neighbors had a son about his age. Donaldson had always looked at the kid with a sort of secret disdain: pale and reedy with a high voice that always seemed on the edge of cracking. But the kid's parents had a pool and so Donaldson carefully wrapped up his distaste into a tiny package inside him so he could spend his summer days lounging on the hot concrete surround or doing flips off the small diving board.

Funny what a person thinks about. Try as he might, he couldn't even remember that kid's name.

Adam Donaldson would do those flips off that small diving board, knifing to the very bottom of the pool and rolling onto his back to look up through the water into the sky. Everything was far away. Deadened sounds. Nothing could touch him. He felt that way now.

"If I were to tell you something would you be able to protect me?" he finally said.

Donaldson had always had an easy smile, straight teeth, sandy brown hair that bleached light in the sun, skin that tanned easily. People trusted him, wanted to know him, and get into his good graces.

Special Agent Jenkins steepled his fingers together, brow furrowed. "I'm not authorized to offer you anything. BUT, tell me what you want to say and I'll see what I can do, depending."

"You've heard of the Blake Association. You must've otherwise you wouldn't have asked about the poem."

"The FBI rounded them up after Red John's death."

"Not all of them, I guess."

"You're saying the Blake Association did this to your family."

Donaldson swallowed thickly and blinked back the beginnings of tears. "They...someone approached me last month with an offer. A proposal for membership, really."

"Did you recognize the person who approached you?"

"No. He was a stranger. White guy in his late 30s somewhere, totally nondescript. Just very ordinary, you know? He cornered me while I was out on a run."

"And you refused him."

"Of course I did!" As if from a great distance, Donaldson heard his own voice rising in anger. "I thought that would be the end of it!"

"Would you recognize the man if you saw him again?"

"Maybe. Yes. I don't know," Donaldson said miserably.

* * *

Walking into the FBI offices, Lisbon found herself more nervous than she'd anticipated. But why shouldn't she be, she reasoned. Never a fan of big productions, she felt horribly exposed. She'd accepted the transfer offer, announced it, Wiley and Fisher had thrown her a going away party for God's sake, Abbott had made a _speech_. And then, after all that, here she was back, never having even left the state. After Jane talked his way onto an _airplane _(of all the romantic cliches) just to declare himself. She'd cried. In public.

As if that wasn't enough, there were the logistics to consider: she had no home either here or in DC, most of her worldly possessions were in boxes, probably stacked neatly, at Marcus's apartment because sending them to him (who did have a place) had seemed like the eminently logical thing to do, Marcus who she somehow still hadn't talked to. The pit of her stomach felt hollow.

Jane, preternaturally aware of her as always, touched the call button for the elevator, then reached over to squeeze her shoulder.

"It'll be okay, Teresa," he soothed.

"In what universe?" she hissed back.

Almost as soon as they stepped out of the elevator she heard Abbott's voice. "Agent Lisbon, a word?" Jane turned to come with her, but Abbott shook his head. "Personnel stuff. You wouldn't be interested."

Jane made a face as if he were about to object but then visibly thought better off it. "Save you a seat." He smiled and touched the back of Lisbon's hand, gently. As worried as she was, as much as she was dreading the things she would have to do to unfuck her logistics, she still felt a whisper-soft tightening of desire in her belly.

She followed Abbott to his office and watched as he closed the door, careful to make sure it was fully latched. She'd never known him to be so fussy before.

"What's going on, sir?" His uncharacteristic show of fastidiousness brought her earlier anxiety roaring back. He was going to fire her. He was going to fire her and she would have no job and no home and have to live with Jane in his glorified sardine can until one of them snapped and murdered the other.

"Have a seat, Agent." She sat, waiting for what seemed like an hour for Abbott to situate himself across the desk from her. "I want you to know that my tolerance for the sort of shenanigans that have been going on over the past few days is _extremely_ limited."

"Yes, sir, I understand."

"I also want you to understand that, should you choose to come back to work for me, undoing your transfer, a move, I might add, that will do some harm to this unit's working relationship with our colleagues in the DC office, is not something I undertake lightly. Whatever this is with you and Jane, figure it out. I can't have either of you running out on me every time you feel like it."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, I plan on having the same conversation with Jane later, but there's something else I wanted to discuss with you first."

"Sir, I can assure you that I…"

Abbott flicked his hand in front of his face as if he could physically wave her words away. "I'm not interested in speeches, Agent, just...don't make me regret this." There was an almost imperceptible softening around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth and Lisbon relaxed a bit in her seat. "You'll be subject to a six month probationary period, which is the HR standard. I expect it will run out quietly, without incident. I'd subject Jane to the same thing if I could figure out a way to make it happen." His smile was brief and tight, but genuine. "What concerns me most immediately is the case that just came in from Fort Hood."

Since the shootings, Lisbon always felt a twinge of melancholy at hearing that name, so entwined as it was in multiple public tragedies. She frowned slightly. "It's not…"

"Thankfully, no, but it's not good and that's why I wanted to talk to you before the briefing. I don't know how Jane is going to take this. This morning, MPs responded to an emergency call at base housing. Captain Adam Donaldson's family had been killed, slaughtered really; his wife and two young daughters. Captain Donaldson was present, but survived the attack."

Lisbon's mouth went dry. "My god."

"If I could keep Jane out of this I would. Frankly, his erratic behavior lately would suggest that a brief suspension might be in order. For his own benefit, of course." Abbott smiled darkly.

"He wouldn't take it even if you tried to force him."

"I'm aware. That's why I think the best strategy is control. I'm not asking you to be his minder, Agent Lisbon; that would be beneath your abilities and insulting to boot. I just wanted you to be aware of the situation since the two of you have a...complicated connection."

Lisbon felt the beginnings of a blush heat her cheeks and bit her lip in frustration. "Of course, sir. I understand."

Abbott stood and Lisbon took that as her cue to do so as well. "There's more to this case, but you'll find out at the briefing. Let's get this over with."


	4. Chapter 4

**Feeling inspired by all your kind reviews! Also I am gearing up for a couple weekends away so I'm not sure how much time I'll have for writing in the interim. Boourns. BUT this is a longer-than-usual installment so yay?**

* * *

Lisbon, unprepared for Jane's tug on her hand, sat down more suddenly than she'd anticipated and nearly pitched into him in the process. He had the good sense to arrange his features into a passable semblance of contrition, though her fleeting annoyance and their presence in the FBI's main briefing room didn't stop him from lightly stroking his fingertips along the side of her thigh under the table.

Now that he had given himself permission to see her in this way, as the person he loved more than any other thing, it was like part of the world had tip-tilted away from him and he was looking at things from a previously undiscovered angle. Jane (being Jane) would never truly allow for _everything_ to be out of his control, even his short-lived drug experimentation was done with purpose and direction. That was one thing he and Lisbon had in common, though they both expressed that need for control in very different ways.

Instead of looking daggers at him, as expected, she stilled his hand by laying two fingers on it. It was then that he noticed how carefully she was avoiding looking at him. He leaned forward in his seat for a better view of her face. A beat to admire the gorgeous constellations of freckles printed there (particularly the one that hovered tantalizingly over the top right corner of her lips; he'd have to come back to that one later for further study), a second beat to recognize and puzzle over the half-conspiratorial glances she was darting toward Abbott and the projector screen at the end of the conference table.

"Let me guess: you're worried this will somehow end up like the end of that movie about the girl down the well."

A touch of a smile. Lisbon closed her eyes briefly and exhaled through her nose. It was a sound half amused and half despondent.

"Since when do you watch anything released in the past 50 years, Jane?"

"There's a lot you don't know about me."

She turned to face him fully then, her eyes very clear and very serious, which was so much of what he loved about her in just a look. "I know there is."

Abbott's voice cut across the moment and it scurried away. "I know a lot of you were pulled off other projects for this, so thank you for coming together so quickly." One press of a button dimmed the lights and engaged the automatic shades on the plate glass walls, another brought up a bright jumble of shapes on the projector screen. It took Jane a moment to understand exactly what he was seeing: pictures side-by-side of a living room and two bedrooms. A bit cramped looking, maybe, a bit worn around the edges; beige carpeting meant to be inoffensive that ultimately served as a universal signifier for "temporary housing." Jane had been inside enough interchangeably nondescript motel rooms to recognize the breed. Rental he guessed.

On some level he realized that he was intellectualizing to hold himself back just a half step from the rest of the pictures. Someone had torn these rooms apart, indiscriminate and final. He swallowed hard. Most people thought of blood, when they thought of it at all, as being a uniform shade; these people hadn't seen it in any sizable amount. Coloration varied from the lightest ruby with almost bluish undertones to rich garnet to nearly black. Lisbon crooked her hand back in a way that couldn't have been awfully comfortable just so she could hook his fingertips gently with hers and squeeze. Maybe that was what had eased her into his heart over the years. Her _thereness _was undeniable.

"Early this morning, MPs at Fort Hood responded to an emergency call at on-base housing," Abbott began. He spared a single glance directly at Jane before skimming from person to person, making sure everyone was visibly with him. "This was the scene when they arrived. Residents were Captain Adam Donaldson, his wife, Madison, and his two daughters Jenny and Bernadette. Captain Donaldson was injured but survived. His wife and daughters were dead when the MPs arrived."

"Who called it in?" Cho asked. Jane figured he would have to have a chat with Cho sooner or later. Never had such an incisively observant man been so oblivious to the undercurrents around him. Then again, Jane figured ruefully, the same might be said about himself.

"Captain Donaldson, though the army is checking their call records. There were several noise complaint calls in the same general area late the previous night. MPs responded but by the time they arrived they couldn't find anything."

"Probably unrelated," Jane murmured.

"Thoughts, Jane?"

"Oh, I was just agreeing with you." He swallowed hard and forced himself to really look at the photographs. "Take a look at this picture of the living room. We're meant to register it as chaotic."

"Looks pretty chaotic to me," Abbott said. Jane could tell he was doing that whole Socratic method thing he used where he walked you through your deductive steps by asking basic questions. He was a man who liked to see the work firsthand.

Jane tapped the side of his nose and smiled. "You're a smart cookie, Dennis."

"Jane's right," Lisbon said. Oh, how he wanted that phrase on a long-playing album to turn over and over again. She stood and moved so she could point to the living room photograph. "Here. Look. There are greeting cards on this bookcase still upright. The side-table right next to the bookcase…"

"Credenza," Jane corrected with an exaggerated sweetness that was intended in part to maintain that wary distance between himself and the photographs and in part to reassure Lisbon that he wasn't about to fall into a useless pile of extremely small pieces.

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Whatever. The _credenza _- that looks pretty solid - it could have been knocked over without disturbing the cards at all, but it doesn't seem likely."

Cho, arms crossed in typical Cho fashion, tipped his chin up by way of pointing. "Those magazines on the floor don't look right either. Spread out too neat. No torn pages or creases. Looks like someone just turned over the storage basket."

"Well, whatever happened, the army has requested our assistance on this one for one very specific reason." Abbott flicked to the next slide.

Perhaps the last time Jane's mind had been well and truly blank was hearing Red John on Lisbon's phone. Perhaps. But even then the wheels skidded a bit, found purchase, and moved forward. Right in the current moment, he honestly couldn't think of anything. Some part of him registered that this was vaguely embarrassing. He'd dealt with Red John imposters without batting an eyelash and he knew that Red John was dead. Locked in an upper room in his memory palace, secured with a secretly held key, was the feeling of the man's throat under his palms: soft, aging skin, the vague bumps in the trachea, and what seemed like a crispness that was the structure of the throat inside the skin. More pressure and it would snap. Just so. It wasn't as if Red John was the only killer to use blood as his own, sick fingerpaint.

"The invisible worm?" Wiley asked.

"It's Blake," Abbott replied. "O Rose thou art sick./The invisible worm,/That flies in the night/In the howling storm:/Has found out thy bed/Of crimson joy:/And his dark secret love/Does thy life destroy."

"Didn't strike me as one for poetry, Abbott," Jane observed idly. Lisbon shot him a warning look. He was overcompensating for the ways he felt off-balance: a classic dodge. Only someone who'd known him as long as Lisbon had, knew him in the way that Lisbon did, would ever suspect. Not just suspect, he realized, she _knew_; knew for certain what he was doing and was telling him to cut it out. He had once told Erica Flynn about longing to be known that way.

"I'm a quick study," Abbott deadpanned. "When we were working the Blake Association case Fischer and I got what you might call 'an education' from some of the more dedicated analysts."

Wiley chose that moment to very studiously examine the fingernails on his right hand. "Had a bunch of red stuff in it so it seemed relevant," he half-mumbled to no one in particular.

Fischer smoothly picked up the thread of Abbott's briefing. "Based on what our contact at Fort Hood has told me, Captain Donaldson is claiming that the Blake Association killed his family."

"Claiming?" Cho frowned.

"You and Lisbon obviously weren't here when the Blake Association case was active."

"We got a pretty good view from the other side of it though." Jane was surprised at the hint of bitterness in Lisbon's voice, but then he supposed that whole period in her life was shut off from him. The thought was more troubling than he expected; he was used to hearing, seeing, or ferreting out all of the little details of her life. He'd never realized how comforting that had become until he was confronted by this gaping hole. What sort of mess had he left them to clean up? He wanted to ask her immediately, felt the words bubble up behind his closed lips, but then hadn't he told her he wanted to be better? Didn't part of that betterness include picking time and place?

While he'd been mulling this over, Lisbon had retaken her seat. The faint smell of mint shampoo wafting from her hair brought him back to attention. He wondered how long it would be until they felt comfortable enough to shower together. She might never agree to use the Airstream's amenities for that but he was prepared to be thoroughly accommodating when it came to location, just so long as he could have her in his arms, air clouded, the sharp scent of mint. He wanted so much to kneel in the shower and wash her legs, to kiss her stomach and show her that he was capable of softness without artifice.

"It was a high priority investigation," Fischer said. "If it is the Blake Association then the organization is more covert than we even imagined two years ago. It could also be a new group cashing in on the notoriety."

"We can't avoid the possibility that Captain Donaldson is lying," Jane said. As if on cue, all the agents in the briefing room turned to look at him. "Please. I'm just saying what you're all thinking."

"Jane is right, of course," Abbott said. "In cases like this, the nearest relative should always be a consideration. Due to shared jurisdiction we will have to proceed very carefully on this front. Cho, I want you to run point with Fischer. I think the military investigators will be more comfortable talking to you given your army background. We've secured a block of rooms in Killeen and your contact on base is Special Agent Quentin Jenkins. He's expecting you at 4pm for an additional briefing. The rest of you: hotel information is in your email. There's a conference room set aside for our use and I'll see you all there at 6:30 this evening when Fischer and Cho will bring the rest of us up to speed."

Lisbon was first out of the briefing room. Jane was momentarily puzzled, then dismayed by his own puzzlement (the last thing he needed was to transform into a human limpet just because Teresa Lisbon said she loved him, just because he'd finally decided to stop being the gray specter of a man who spent most of his time haunting his own life). She stood outside and to the right of the briefing room door, cell phone gripped tightly and pressed so hard against her face that he wondered if it would leave marks.

"Hi, Marcus," he heard her say, weakly.

* * *

The fleeting spike of rage Donaldson felt while the nurse dispassionately took his cheek swab was enough to give him pause. He prided himself on grace under pressure; it was one of the reasons he'd joined the army in the first place. He could have gone into private practice or cancer research like so many of his classmates at the Feinberg School of Medicine. Big pharma was always looking for new blood. And they paid well for it, naturally.

Instead he had done the honorable thing, just as he had when he was at Princeton and Madison had gotten pregnant.

The swab brushed dryly against the soft skin inside his mouth and he recoiled faintly at the sensation.

"How's your incision feeling, Captain?" the nurse asked.

Scrapes on his hands, a mild concussion, and a stab wound barely worth the name.

The litany in his head was becoming a distraction: I don't deserve this.


End file.
